"Women directors are a rarity in Portuguese cinema, although there are a couple of first works in post-production at the time of writing. But the filmmaking team of Margarida Cordeiro and António Reis has produced a number of films since Jaime, their 1972 debut. Ana is a marvelous introduction to their surreal vision of the world. Lyrically photographed to capture the atmosphere of the region in which the film is set, Ana is a portrait of a simple, selfless grandmother, filtered through the memory of her grownup granddaughter. Childhood memories, incomplete and half-remembered - the return of a young girl in the middle of a storm, the walk the grandmother takes to a lake - combine to create a timeless, almost liturgical tone. Rejecting the traditional conventions of narrative cinema, Cordeiro and Reis concentrate on incident and form, celebrating the darkness and somberness of the primitive mountain people whose lives are briefly interrupted by a team of ethnographers. 'Let us guard ourselves against looking at the film as if it were a simple ecological requiem advocating a return to nature. The cinema of Reis and Cordeiro has reached a crucial point in which categories like nature, civilization, rural, and urban are condemned to lose their aesthetic relevance. Only knowledge remains. This cinema knows. Ana is a film that has entirely conquered the time and space it evokes.' -João Lopes"

Wide and Tallby Eric RohmerIn issue 31 of the Cahiers,
François Truffaut’s famous article, “A Certain Tendency of the French
Cinema,” coincided with the collective review of the presentation of the
first film in Cinemascope. The magazine’s position was defined not
only by what it denounced (content nourished by hackneyed libertarian themes), but by what it highly approved of: a form regenerated by the newest techniques (color, zoom, 3D), but kept in doubt by the nomenklatura of the time. Among
the six writers collaborating in this group, only two, Bazin and
Doniol, risked a few timid reservations. The other four - Dorsay,
Astruc, Rivette and myself - exhibited an almost delirious enthusiasm;
an enthusiasm justified by the long and happy life Cinemascope has known
since, and will continue to know, in intimate as well as spectacular
films. The paradox, however, is that Rivette and I, its biggest
supporters (contrary to Truffaut, Astruc, and Godard at the time), have
never, in our films, used the Chretien process. To stick to myself,
I’d say that I’ve become a more and more determined adversary of ‘scope
in particular and even, in general, of the wide screen. My only 1.66:1
films, aside from my first, The Sign of Leo, are the ones I shot on Super 16. All the others are 1.33:1.Re-reading this article, I’m alarmed to see that I was praising as “virtues” what I’d now like to denounce as the most insidious vices
of contemporary cinema. In a word, I think that, far from favoring
directors’ formal inventiveness, widescreen, instead, stifles it. It
is, I’m more and more persuaded, if not the only, at least the main
culprit for the expressive poverty of the image today.In
believing we were rediscovering the visual dynamism of the silent
masterpieces, we were only turning our backs on them, and I’m surprised
that widescreen continues to be popular in the profession, without
anyone, critics or technicians, daring to bluntly confess that the low
ceilings in multiplexes are the real reason behind a commercial rather
than an aesthetic choice.Scope,
I said in this article, allowed the film to do away with a certain
number of cliches inherited from academic painting. It liberated the
frame from the constraints of “composition,” going so far as to render
the very notion of “framing” futile. This freedom has revealed itself
to be only an illusion: a fact once and for all, inevitably, far from
stimulating the directors’ imaginations, it paralyses it, and, thinking
they’re escaping stasis, they only fall back into it with renewed force.
I don’t think I’m exaggerating by saying that a slightly bigger screen
offers a thousand less combinations to filmmakers in the dynamic
organization of line, surface and volume than the good, old standard
format. It no longer inspires so easily, for example, the frame within a
frame constructions in which the “cine-plastic” genius of Griffiths,
Murnaus, Langs, Hitchcocks, Renoirs, and a hundred others revealed
itself. It weighs down shot/reverse shots, a major element of
cinematographic syntax that, even with my love of Welles and Bazin, I’ve
never been close to renouncing. There’s
more: “Cinemascope,” I wrote, “finally introduces in our art the only
tangible element that escaped it: air, the divine ether of poets.” Now,
it is precisely against this lack of air, imposed by current framing,
that I do not cease to combat. Because where is the air, if you really
look for it? To the left, to the right? No, it is to the top
that our eyes looks for it, and it is this upper part that has
disappeared. It’s at the top that one breathes, and it is at the top
that the poetry is often found! I like that my characters’ heads don’t
bump against the top of the frame. I like to show the sky, the trees,
the mountains, even the roofs of houses, so much so that I only feel at
ease in rooms with high ceilings. It’s a matter of taste, they’ll say.
Very well. But, if I miss the upper part of the screen, the lower part
is often also lacking for me. The sides aren’t too important: the
slightest pan is enough to extend them. On the other hand, knowing that
my frames will be “enlarged,” (in fact, “narrowed,” I’d put it) by the
projection in most theaters, I have trouble showing with enough
“presence” what seems to me to be the most expressive part of the human
body (the head, shoulders, and hands) by shots that used to be called
“close-up,” that continue, in spite of everything, to make me happy, but
that I look for in vain in the films of my younger colleagues. How
often have I had to regretfully employ this or that ploy to avoid having
my actors’ hands go too low, hands that are often more eloquent than a
word or a face! Long live Eisenstein, I’d prefer to proclaim today, who
only dreamed of the square screen!My last film, however, The Lady and the Duke,
for the sole purpose of preventing the mangling at the hands of
distributors and TV channels, was shot in 16:9. Unfortunately, this
format doesn’t exist in movie theaters: its equivalent would be 1.77:1,
which projectors can’t do. That’s why the 35mm copy will be printed
1.66:1, to avoid any choice, by the projectionist, of 1.85:1. This
policy of the least evil hardly delights me. Shall I say it’s the fault
of Cinemascope’s?Originally published in Cahiers du cinéma, August 2001.

Designing WomanLuc MoulletOne
explosive evening, a sports reporter meets a ravishing fashion
designer. Their friendship is established under rather extraordinary
circumstances. Four days later, they get married. In her luxurious New
York apartment, the designer (and not the female model, as we are led
to believe by a poor translation, plus a bad pun, that a belies the
colossal difference between the respective salaries of the two careers)*
receives and entertains dressmakers, dancers and writers while, in the
room next door, the journalist plays cards with boxers and managers.
After falling in love at first sight, they discover their differences:
it’s the story of a relationship. Disagreements increase with
misunderstandings: she suspects him of infidelity at the very moment
when, chased by the corrupt boxing gang he’s fighting in his articles,
he’s forced to hide under a false name in a hotel room. After a certain
number of quiproquos worthy of Molière, everything ends well, thanks to
the intervention of the virtuous dancer while the scores are being
settled.It’s
clear that genres are mixed, but the film’s tone fills us in
immediately: it’s a comedy. A serious comedy, however, because it seems
that Vincente Minnelli, an interesting, but uneven auteur, tried to
direct the film of his life by describing certain dramatic and
paradoxical aspects - hence the recourse to comedy - of American life,
that take on an importance at once eternal and universal.Is
this an exaggeration of the range of a film that was made, above all,
to entertain? I don’t believe so because Minnelli expresses himself not
by words and theories but rather through extremely subtle brush strokes in the dramatic construction as much as in the arrangement of
the lines. It
isn’t necessary, however, to possess a deep knowledge of American
sociology to grasp Minnelli’s intentions, all the more so as the
difference between this sociology and our own is slim. Two milieus are,
then, opposed, modeled after reality: that of the intellectuals or
pseudo-intellectuals - from Greenwich Village and Broadway - and that of
the sports fans, regulars at Madison Square Garden; two milieus that
are absolutely foreign to one another, inheritors of two opposite
civilizations.Minnelli
belongs, moreover, to one of these clans: that of the snobs whose
position he takes by exploiting certain very personal considerations.
Both groups have chosen to live by abstracting reality - either
intellectual or physical reality - therefore becoming unfit for their
jobs in order to be content. Stupid and defeated boxers, corrupt
managers, and vicious gangsters having nothing to envy of artless
artists, effeminate dancers, and accomplished gossipers. Their
movements are similar, not by what they are (though let’s not forget the
extraordinary gag with the henchman who elegantly wipes up his
adversary’s blood), but by their baseness, highlighted by the director’s
talent. The stunning A Song is Born had already established the connection between the mores of gangsters and library rats.Our
two heroes (and the dancer in the final scene - but her case is
special!) partially escape from this fallen world because they love each
other and because they are originally from opposite worlds. And the
climax explains the film’s structure in a way that I hope you’ll allow
me to qualify as brilliant: Lauren Bacall finds happiness because she
learns to overcome her fear of physical violence, and she calls for
action four times; Gregory Peck is saved from the fight not thanks to
the all powerful blows of his moronic bodyguard, but thanks to the
ballet routine of the dancer with bizarre movements. Carried
by such a big subject, Minnelli seems to have resolved the formal
questions that previously limited his talent. He directs his actors
better, without, however, attaining perfection in this area. Lauren
Bacall remains the goddess of American cinema, but a better director
would have known how to make better use of the possibilities of her
skills. Just like the script, the photography and colors are
remarkable. The cinematographer John Alton, who does a good job with
the very short camera movements, isn’t there for nothing. But what is
essential remains the liveliness of the strokes and the economy of means
(not on the financial side, the cost being more than a million, but on
the dramatic side). Fifty or so out-of-the-ordinary gags - not to
mention the effects from the voice over - make up the film’s force (but
also its relative weakness because the ideas of the intellectual
Minnelli and the distinguished hedonist Minnelli are inspired by the
conventions of comedy rather than by the subject’s internal
necessities). In any case, this is a miniature masterpiece of finesse at which you can’t not laugh throughout its two hours.

*The film was released in France as La Femme modèle (The Model Woman).

Originally published in Arts, August 15, 1957.The Cobwebby Luc MoulletBehind the CurtainExecutive Suite
- a film entirely consecrated to the narration of a meeting of the
board of directors of an important company and an account of the motives
of the board members - had a lot of commercial success. John Houseman
tried to do it again with this Cobweb:
for over two hours the managing members of a psychiatric house compete
for power. The reason for their struggle? Will the patterns of the
curtains in the boardroom be designed by the doctors or by the patients?
Two generations of psychiatrists confront one another. This affair is
on the verge of destroying the career and threatening the homes and
lives of a dozen characters. This time, the stunning thinness of the
subject matter and, especially, the absence of suspense caused the
failure with the public.One
might be shocked that the film was directed by Minnelli, classified
once and for all among the specialists of musical comedies. Let’s not
be mistaken, Minnelli is just as much an intellectual and The Cobweb, just like an earlier attempt, The Bad and the Beautiful
which it strongly resembles, carries the mark of his personality.
Helped by his screenwriter John Paxton, who is interested in
psychological and social problems (cf. The Wild One),
Minnelli looked to reconnect to the old tradition of realism - inspired
by the French novel from the end of the last century, and the
Anglo-Saxon novel that followed it. There is some of William James and
Frank Norris in this film. The patients, because they know their
faults, sometimes behave more normally than the sane people, who
experience multiple distractions. If our psychiatrists appear like the
mentally ill it’s because no distinctions can exist between human
beings: there are neither good nor bad ones; nor crazy ones, nor sane
ones. Everything is relative. As the hero of the film says, as
Minnelli told the French press, we have, in our thoughts, good and evil,
which are equally reflected in our actions. And we are submitted to
this destiny that creates, on this cobweb that is spun, the diverse
actions of life; in the same way, our private life cannot escape from
the influence of our professional life: all the facts of existence are
inseparably linked, whether we want it or not. From this subtle dance
of the acts and the characters comes the apparently casual construction.
The famous curtains are always there, whatever happens.Note
Minnelli’s taste for troubled feelings: madness interests him a lot,
more particularly, the artist’s madness. He himself is a filmmaker on
the margins: he is very ambitious, however he prefers to shoot
entertainment films. We discover here, in certain moments, a desire for
self-justification.The
direction doesn’t keep the promises contained in such a brilliant
theme. Relativism has unfortunate influences on the aesthetic.
Minnelli considers his characters like typical cases, entities, rather
than human beings. The best actors in Hollywood are here. Richard
Widmark, Lauren Bacall, Lillian Gish, Susan Strasberg, John Kerr,
Charles Boyer are more or less below their capabilities. Only Gloria
Grahame, because she doesn’t know how to act, because she is always like
she is in real life, contrasts with the hamming of certain actors
around her. She walks in a bizarre manner, which makes her sometimes
deviate from her path; she takes off her shoes, makes a phone call,
frowns with a marvelous naturalness. The scenes with two actors lack
nerve (cf. the break between Widmark and L. Bacall). These weaknesses
are, however, made tolerable by the diversity and multiplicity of what
we are shown. This baroque film leads us to bizarre, messy residences
that we didn’t suspect in the New World, to poetic landscapes, natural
or recreated in the studio, like the nocturnal river lit by the
liveliest colors. More than Minnelli the philosopher, it’s Minnelli the
mannerist, the decorator, who brings to his film a certain positive
element: the beauty of insignificant details, a rickety telephone,
suddenly revelatory lighting, the beauty of a tracking shot, the beauty
of strong and precise framing. The color, alone, with its yellowish
browns, is rather ugly; but such is the house style at Metro Goldwyn
Mayer.